


The Ghost of You and Me

by FallingOverSideways



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, Writing Prompt, sst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-06
Updated: 2018-10-06
Packaged: 2019-07-25 22:04:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16206578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FallingOverSideways/pseuds/FallingOverSideways
Summary: Belated work for SST lol.Trying to find a place to calm his thoughts, Shepard finds himself being haunted by a ghost with a familiar face.Or is he??





	The Ghost of You and Me

**Author's Note:**

> Shenko Smut Thursdays are officially lifting the smut restrictions, hopefully to inspire more people, and becoming more prompt driven. Come visit us at SpectreKaidanAlenko.tumblr.com or me at shotce.tumblr.com
> 
> Quick beta by the amazing JeanneDarcPrice! Thanks dude!!

The Port Observation is a place Shepard likes to haunt when he’s not active for a mission. Kasumi will give him a small smile when he makes a beeline for the bar and lets him go about his business unless he engages her in conversation. When he does, she calls him ‘Shep’ and offers insight into the crew joining the new SR-2.

The thief is his favorite companion. Garrus will always be his best friend, but with him comes memories, and the turian will want to eventually reminisce. Something he’s not ready for.

Drinking and focusing on the current mission. Not healthy, but that’s the coping mechanism he started years ago on earth.

Tonight even Kasumi’s silent presence is too much. Shepard offers a small nod, pours a healthy amount of whiskey into his coffee cup and does an about face. The sludge he brewed in the galley thins with the alcohol to actually resemble coffee and he sneaks into the Starboard Observation. EDI tried to keep him locked out until it housed the intended occupant, but he didn’t make N7 or survive as long as he has without picking up some great skills.

It’s quiet. The door is locked behind him, but he keeps most of the lights off while he works on reports. More for Hackett and Anderson than Cerberus. He trusts Miranda to take care of the worst of it, something that gives the biotic mixed reactions, but their relationship has already improved a lot since first boarding the SR-2 together.

The stars are awe inspiring; the planet they’re orbiting a great shift of violet and indigo gas with sparks of lightning. The datapads are forgotten on the couch as he carefully keeps his mind blank and observes.

Time passes and a feeling crawls over him, tickling the fine hairs of his body as he extends his peripheral and forces himself to relax. There’s nothing in the shadows hugging the edges of the room, but the feeling grows.

Earth had its fair share of superstitions. Aliens have their own fascinating histories with the supernatural, but humans almost always tied theirs to places or a rare object.

The feeling grew to the point it almost bit at his skin, and just as he was opening his mouth to call for EDI to scan the room, he noticed the shape.

It was faint, no more than an outline, but as he leaned to look closer it thickened and formed.

A person’s profile.

Taking a heavy swallow from his mug, Shepard finished his coffee and eased closer.

The person was sitting on the opposite end of the couch he was on and Shepard traced the edges of the figure as light from the planet and stars seemed to reflect off of him and shape him-

The mug fell carelessly from his hand and bounced with a loud noise against the floor, before rolling over to the outline of a booted foot. Strong eyebrows pulled together in the profile as the mug stopped against the foot.

“Kaidan?”

The other man seemed startled, eyes up and hunting as soon as the name fell from Shepard’s lips.

Oh god, it was. It was Kaidan Alenko. Looking a couple years older, like he would now if Shepard had been closer to the bomb site on Virmire, rather than almost to Ashley’s barricade.

“Oh god. KAIDAN.”

The light seemed to brighten until only the darkest shadows of the former lieutenant weren’t visible and those warm eyes found his, dark but for the reflection of starlight in them.

“Shepard?” It was like a whisper caught on the wind, but he could hear it. Kaidan’s eyes went wide in shock. “John?!”

Shepard flinched away and that seemed to shattered whatever hallucination this was. Kaidan’s figure quickly disappeared back into shadow, the last thing to fade was the golden gleam of his eyes.

“EDI? EDI!”

“Yes, Shepard?”

“Tell me I’m not going crazy.”

“I am not authorized to give you a psych evaluation, but I could call for Yeoman Chambers if you wish. Or perhaps even Dr. Chakwas.”

“So I was alone. You didn’t detect anything abnormal in this room a moment ago?”

“To my knowledge, no one has entered or left since you bypassed my security on the door.” Oo, there was a bit of sting to those words. “However, there was an anomaly that I already recorded and dispatched to the crew.”

  
Ok. Not crazy. But the question that hovered over his thoughts was: was it really Kaidan?

~*N7*~

The anomaly was an odd one, as if space and time seemed to stretch in a small bubble next to where Shepard had been sitting. Miranda poured over the reports herself while Joker and the others were just happy to leave the star system.

Shepard didn’t tell anyone who he’d seen, but Kasumi seemed to have a knowing smirk on her face.

Kaidan had been a great marine, an even better friend with sound advice for their turbulent missions. He was an anchor, a very attractive one that Shepard would have chased after had they not been serving on the same ship. And if the lingering glances the biotic gave him at the end of their post mission debriefs held merit, the attraction was mutual.

Losing him again, even just his ghost, made Shepard lose himself in the mission once more. He opened up to Kasumi, Samara came to take over the Starboard Observation and Garrus cornered him into a card game with Donnelly and Jacob.

They lost, Shepard won and bought himself a space hamster and fish to keep him company in his cabin so he could actually find rest in there.

Shepard was hunched over the mess table with his reports and belated dinner late one night when it happened again. The light catching on a silhouette and slowly revealing a familiar figure. This time he all but held his breath, eyes hungry on the figure across from him, caught up in a very similar task.

As if feeling that gaze, Kaidan looked up, freezing as he spotted Shepard. He reached out a hand tentatively and he mirrored the pose, skin tingling more and more until it was almost burning where their fingertips seemed to pass through each other. The biotic was smiling even as the light twinkled on the unshed tears in his eyes.

“Commander, I had the strangest-“

Kaidan blinked out, leaving the feeling of crawling ants on his skin as Shepard turned to see Samara frowning at the space the ghostly figure had been until she accidentally interrupted.

EDI filed another recording of the events, Miranda interviewed him extensively, Mordin asked for skin samples, they continued on without answers.

It continued to happen; most of the times when Shepard was alone, others only catching a glimpse of SOMETHING. Kaidan started looking less sad to see him, almost chipper on some occasions. There were times the shape of him didn’t even manifest, but there was a feeling, or a sound. Like a familiar laugh that made Shepard’s heart ache or music that felt like home.

Once there was even a scent he caught as his skin started tingling, like a memory.

It wasn’t always on the Normandy, but it usually was.

The spectral meetings carried on after the Collectors and as they raced against time to build an army and a weapon to save the galaxy. Kaidan became a companion, had even shouted a warning to save their lives on a mission. He’d even guided him to a clone wearing his face; leaned against him as he recovered from the party in Anderson’s apartment.

The ghostly figure also sat down on the edge of Shepard’s bed to watch him pleasure himself, dared to run a hand up his leg and leave a blaze of feeling that had him coming in his fist. He’d gone shopping for a fancy dildo after that, not even embarrassed to have his voice announcing his patronage for the discount, so he could pretend it belonged to his ghost as Kaidan kissed him tentatively, leaving little zings that had Shepard reaching for him every time.

The more they touched each other, the more tolerable the burn became, the more solid they seemed to each other.

Speaking too much seemed to break whatever spell kept Kaidan there, so they communicated in other ways, but sometimes the other man would see or hear something only he could, and the second he lost focus on Shepard, he was gone.

On the last mission through devastated London streets, they all started seeing glimpses of him for the first time, but he only seemed to see Shepard. And as Tali and Garrus ran for the beam with him, Kaidan ran with them, eyes focused ahead.

Garrus and Tali fell when the tank nearly hit them, the quarian unable to go forward and probably housing multiple suit ruptures. As Shepard urgently ordered in an evac, they saw Kaidan beside her, clearer than ever, his injuries mirroring hers.

The turian turned to Shepard, confounded. “Do earth ghosts usually act this way?”

Tali reached out to Kaidan with a trembling hand, passing through the human’s heaving form. “Maybe he’s not.”

“Not what?”

As the Normandy flew in and landed, they watched as something, or someone, helped Kaidan up. In the exact same way Garrus was helping Tali, mirroring their movements right until the ramp where Shepard said a last goodbye to his crew.

That was when Kaidan finally looked at him, face pale even for a ghost and eyes bright with pain. His hand reached out to Shepard and as their fingers brushed, the commander could swear they were solid.

Shepard backed away, eyes on his crew and Kaidan until the ramp closed and then he was running again. Alone.

~*N7*~

It was dark. The air tasted like rust and dirt. Every breath was wet, heavy; every movement a challenge.

“Fuck-“ The words were garbled as they fell from his mouth, Shepard focused on his breathing a moment before checking his injuries.

The burns weren’t as bad as they could have been and he’d had worse than the lesions and damaged bones...but not all at once.

His Omni-Tool flickered to life with a small wave, but held no extranet feed, no communications, just a soft light to highlight his prison.

Checking the date, he could see he’d been out for at least two days. The dwindling Medi Gel implied he’d woken up enough a few times to administer it and keep himself alive.

Craning his neck, he didn’t see himself leaving of his own volition. As nice as a rest would feel, he’d been a survivor too long and started using large rubble to pull himself up. Each movement taxed him and fifteen minutes later found him draped over a fallen blast door like a limp hanar. “Fuck me.”

“I don’t think now’s the time. Do you?”

Breath hitching, he looked up to see Kaidan kneeling beside him, the tingling all but replaced with a distant pressure.

“You’re ok?”

A grin lit the other man’s face. “Takes more than that to bring down a marine. Come on, let’s get you free.”

Shepard stared at him, the armor that was lighter than the one he’d been hurt in during the last run, the healing cuts on his face. It was the clearest he’d ever seen Kaidan and he desperately didn’t want him to go.

“Where are you?”

“What?”

Leaning back against the torn door, Shepard took in every detail. The bars of a Major, the Spectre paint on his armor, the faint grey at his temple.

“You’re not a ghost. Where are you?”

Kaidan frowned worriedly. “We don’t have much time, I need to get you-“

“Take me with you.”

The other man stared at him, heart in his eyes and dumbfounded, so Shepard used the last of his strength to get closer.

“They don’t need me anymore, Kaidan. I love you. Take me with you.”

Eyes bright in the dark, the biotic nodded and gestured to something Shepard couldn’t see and then there was a hand in his, a fierce burning, but neither let go even as the burning covered them both and the pressure nearly crushed them.

The next thing he was aware of was laying on top another person in full armor. People were bustling around them and Liara and Miranda were grinning at them from where they sat, half collapsed against debris, blood smeared on their upper lips.

The area was similar to where he’d fallen, but not the same.

Dazed, he looked down to see Kaidan beaming up at him, bringing a hand up to wipe away the blood leaking from his own nose. “That’ll hurt later.”

“What?”

“Is that my dumbass brother?”

Shepard stared incredulously at the redhead storming over on a crutch while Samara and Garrus helped him up off of Kaidan. “Who am I now?” The only sister he’d had died on Mindoir.

“Your story is very similar to ours, commander.” Samara held him while Kaidan administered Medi Gel. “Paths differ, like Lieutenant Alenko being lost to you and our Commander’s brother dying on the first Normandy.”

“And biotics?” Kaidan leaned his forehead against Shepard’s and they only felt warm skin. “We’re more than a little bit magical.”

They kissed and for the first time, there was nothing separating them.

~*N7*~

Back in the rubble they’d left behind, searchers only ever found his dog tags, but his crew never mourned him. Instead, they placed the lieutenant’s name next to the commander’s on the Normandy‘ s memorial wall and carried on.


End file.
